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July 27, 2009

Herd mentality rules from Wall Street to Main Street. Lately, the journo herd has
stampeded towards Helpareporter.com (HARO)
for news sources. But just because HARO is the herd’s favored watering hole,
doesn’t mean it’s the only place you ought to go to drink.

To reach the best sources for your article or book, leverage
all the source services to your advantage. Here’s the lay of the land so you
can map your own path and thus stand out from the herd:

·HARO– a free service for both journalists and PR types, supported
by advertising. Owned/operated by Peter Shankman, a PR guru, found on Twitter
at http://twitter.com/skydiver

Pros: Fast responses, quality
sources. If your deadline is really tight, Peter and crew are great about
Tweeting yoursource needs to a massive
following on Twitter. They also screen members and punish spammers thereby
eliminating “junk” and off-point responses to your queries. Reporter query form
is streamlined and easy to use.

Cons: Responses are generally strong from PR folks, company owners and technology leaders. Short on big name
analyst firms, Fortune 500, political types, celebrities, economic development
groups, and scientific and university sources when compared to other services.
Also, you run the risk of your story idea being stolen as your query is very
public; doubly so when it is tweeted by the crew. However, you are at similar
risk when you tweet for sources yourself or use competing services that also
use Twitter. Also, historically speaking, prime sources will tip their fav
reporters to your story angles on occasion, so this problem is not unique to
HARO.

Pros: A professional librarian will research anything for you, and I
mean anything. This resource makes any freelancer function with all the
strength of a fully staffed newsroom; staff writers suffering from shortages in
news rooms will also highly benefit from this service. A research librarian can
identify leading sources and contact info; complete publishing history of a
subject/industry; deliver stats, numbers of all kinds, clips (video or print)
of previous interviews -- in other words comprehensive info you cannot easily,
if at all, find anywhere else. Looking for contact info of the big names that
shy away from media? The librarian will produce it in minutes. The Library also
has full access to resources journos often cannot afford themselves, such as Nexis, the news half of Lexis Nexis. They
can also direct you to sources that will give you a heads up on news forecasts
(what WILL be news in the future) such as NewsAhead
World News Forecast. Reliable
research material and source info are handed to you on a platter!

Some research services cost an
additional fee. The first 4 research articles are free. After that, it is $2.00
per article. Beth usually does the search and sends a citation list to you.
Then, you can respond with which articles you want the full-text for, thus
controlling the costs to you. There is an hourly charge for extensive research
– such as researching trips to the Library of Congress.

Cons: Other than the fees, not a darn thing. Your queries are
confidential and not shared with other journalists. Beth and her team are a
godsend, simple as that!

Pros: Very strong in several
source types: colleges and universities, corporations, government agencies,
legislative offices, small businesses, nonprofit organizations, hospitals and
medical centers, analysts, authors, speakers, consultants, and, of course, PR
agencies. One of the benefits for reporters using ProfNet is that they can
choose institution type(s) they want to send the query to. If you want to
target just colleges and universities, for example, you can. Reporter query
forms have been recently streamlined making the service easier to use.

Reporters can also search
ProfNet's Experts Database to find experts and communicate with them privately
(via their PR representative). This gives reporters yet another option for
finding experts, without broadcasting their query to the full e-mail subscriber
list. If your deadline is tight, Maria leverages Twitter to speed responses.

Cons: Responses can be slow
although ProfNet has made considerable progress with speeding things up.
Although there is only so much one can do to spur industry heavyweights and
science types. Also, if you ask ProfNet to leverage Twitter to speed responses,
you run the same risks you do with HARO on Twitter. Just depends, you want to
keep your story idea to yourself, or not?

Pros: The information found
here is extraordinary. Five wires are available: SciNews, MedNews, BizNews,
LifeNews, and Daily News. Journalists have access to embargoed news well in
advance of release. This is an awesome advantage as it allows you time to
thoroughly research a topic and yet publish a comprehensive piece on the actual
release date. Offers an extensive contact directory and Find An Expert service
to aid you in your own sourcing needs. A good news library and archive service
enables you to find plenty of background info on a long list of topics.

Cons: To date, I haven’t
found any. The service is limited to serious journalists; it is not sourcing
turf for bloggers, citizen journalists or news aggregators (at least in terms
of embargoed news and access to true experts in any field). Also, your queries are not shared-- nor
visible to-- other journalists.

Why do I share this information
with you? Because I believe, heart and soul, in good journalism and I want to
do everything I can to see the industry weather and prosper despite the current
economic obstacles. Go forth and report – and know that I salute you!

April 14, 2009

by Jon F. Merz, novelist (author of the Lawson Vampire novels), screenwriter, and now TV producer for the new TV showThe Fixer

Note: This episode contains language that may offend some readers.

While I busied myself with other production factors – small things like writing episodes, getting graphic design elements and a website in place – Jaime continued our hunt for financing. It felt by now that we’d exhausted our lists of potential investors. Jaime had pored over issues of Fortune, Forbes, and Boston magazines in his hunt for locating wealthy benefactors – all to no avail.

When we’d first come up with the idea of doing THE FIXER, our first thought was to approach one of the Boston area’s most flamboyant businessmen, a local car dealer who had inherited his empire from his father, but who still used the same motto that his father had screamed at television screens for years. I’d made the initial approach but gotten no response. Jaime, demonstrating his normal inability to take no for an answer, had kept dogging the man’s personal assistant.

Finally, Jaime called me one afternoon. “Tell me I’m great.”

I paused. “Tell me you got us $20 million first.”

“Almost. I got us a meeting with Chalk.”

That got my attention. “How’d you do that?”

Jaime proceeded to tell me that he’d finally managed to get his assistant to look at THE FIXER website and see what a cool project it was. She had managed to locate some time on Chalk’s schedule for a meeting.

Monday.

3PM.

We were stoked. Given the fact that Chalk was all over television through his ads and in bit spots on one the best shows on television, we felt certain he might be our guy. We spent the better part of a week preparing for our meeting.

First, I researched as much sales data as I could find on the web about his empire and what figures he might be moving in a given year. Our plan was to show him how backing us would not give him a tremendous return on his investment, but also give him fantastic product placement opportunities, enable him to gain a larger market share over his competition, and much more. I wrote up five small character roles that he could play in THE FIXER itself if he wanted.

Nick, our web guru and one of graphic design wizards, put together a poster of one of the villains in THE FIXER and got it to me at midnight the day before our meeting, handing it over in the parking lot of a mall as if we were in a drug deal.

But Jaime and I felt certain that we had this thing locked up. Our presentation was solid; we had all the materials we needed to make our case, and things felt…good.

We drove to the business office where Chalk reigned supreme. My first impression was that it looked like someone had cornered the market on faux wood paneling. The place was pretty much a dump.

Inside, Chalk’s personal assistant greeted us warmly and had us take a seat. We waited for about three minutes and then Chalk himself came out. We shook hands and then he looked at us.

“Who are you guys again?”

After explaining who we were, and trying to quell the uneasiness I suddenly felt, he brought us into his office and had us sit at the conference table. As I sat and got my materials out, a magazine suddenly got shoved under my nose.

“Check it out!”

I glanced at the cover. Billboard. I looked up. “Excuse me?”

Chalk jabbed a finger at the Top 100 charts. “Check it out. That’s my record label. My first band.”

I looked back and saw that he’d sold 7400 copies of the CD for the band that he’d signed. I wasn’t impressed. The band had had national hits back when I went through Basic Training and if all they could muster was 7400 copies, I didn’t think it boded particularly well for the label.

But Jaime and I said “wow,” and “amazing,” until he seemed satisfied that we were impressed enough. Then he dropped his lanky frame into a seat and looked us over.

“So, a TV show? What’s this all about?”

We went through our pitch, which by now, we’d honed to a fine point given all of our other experiences. Jaime and I delivered it perfectly. Chalk, however, was anything but impressed, and let us know in a high-pitched whiny voice.

“What? You wanna do what? Why?”

I told him about the Lawson Vampire books sitting on the table in front of us.

“Wait-“ he grabbed one of them. “You wrote these?”

“Yes.”

“Oh my god, I have to get you to sign them.”

I said sure, and took out my treasured Mont Blanc. But Chalk waved it off. “No, no, no, no, you gotta use a marker. Don’t you have a marker?”

As I started to explain that the marker didn’t work well because the paper would make it bleed, he got up and raced back to his desk, returning with a thick Sharpee. “Ya gotta use a Sharpee.”

I dutifully signed the books and he patted them. “I’m gonna read these.”

Swell. Jaime and I got back into our pitch.

“So, I sold Bobcat Goldthwaite a car last week.”

Huh?

Chalk explained how he’d sold the comedian a car the previous week. He then proceeded to explain how he and Goldthwaite got into a conversation about a certain actress and her rather impressive physical attributes.

“She’s got great tits,” said Chalk.

I cleared my throat. “You know, that’s Bobcat’s ex-wife, right?”

Chalk stopped. “Really?”

Chalk’s phone rang. He looked at it. “Hold on, I gotta take this.” He then proceeded to have a fifteen-minute talk with the head of a record company. Jaime and I respectfully waited until he was done. Then we started up again. After this, we waited.

“It’s just so fuckin’ risky.”

This then became Chalk’s mantra for the remainder of our meeting. He would bring up problems and questions he had with the project and we would answer and address every one of them. Every time we delivered a suitable response, he would counter with his newfound mantra.

“You know what you guys need to do: you need to find someone who doesn’t mind losing a few million. You know, someone who can afford to do that.”

I cocked an eyebrow. “All due respect, Mr. Chalk, you’re a billionaire. And the Sultan of Brunei isn’t exactly returning my calls right now.”

Jaime and I had been in a lot of meetings by this point, but this was something else. Chalk was anything but professional. His manner betrayed a complete lack of grace and his speech was uncouth, given the nature of our meeting.

I’d had enough.

While Chalk looked over one of our handouts, I calmly eyed him and said, “Why on earth did you have us come in here today?”

He looked up. “Huh? Well, Christine (his assistant) told me about you guys and you know, I kinda like Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and stuff, and so…” his voice trailed off.

Jaime and I gathered up our stuff. It was time to go. We thanked Chalk for his time and left.

There are a lot of colorful terms I could use to describe Chalk. But I think you have a pretty good idea of what he’s like and I’ll leave it to your creativity to conjure up a suitable moniker for him.

And just think: this is the abbreviated version of what actually happened.

Note: Jon's latest thriller PARALLAX is now out as an ebook! Check it out HERE!

March 05, 2009

by Jon F. Merz, novelist (author of the Lawson Vampire novels), screenwriter, and now TV producer for the new TV showThe Fixer

Along the way to making THE FIXER television series, Jaime and I have encountered a whole slew of people. All of them have usually been extremely interested in the project, and some have even offered to help out. This, of course, is very nice. When you’re out on the edge, it’s nice to know you have company.

However, not everyone actually lives up to what they say they can deliver. And we also started running into our fair share of crazy people along the way. Usually, the conversation would go something like this:

Us: “We’re looking for investors. Do you know any wealthy folks who might be interested in coming on-board?”

Them: “Yes! I have an aunt who has a ton of money and she loves television. I’ll bet she would invest.”

Us: “Awesome! How can we get in touch with them?”

Them: “Uh, well, the thing is she’s kind of dead.”

Us: “Kind of?”

Them: “Yeah.”

This exchange actually happened more than we ever would have believed possible, leading both Jaime and I to surmise that people are either a) blissfully oblivious as to the exact nature of death and how it might interfere with such mundane things as financial and investment transactions or b) a lot crazier than the evening news would have you believe. I suppose they could also be both.

But the crazies we dealt with usually by chuckling about the whole thing and continuing on our merry way. We had scores of people yet to talk to and a few minutes taken out for a grin or a smile was a welcome thing – especially when rejection has been a constant companion.

Liars, however, are something else entirely.

We met one woman who swore she could help us. Turns out her mother had worked for a guy who owned his own energy company. Every year this guy threw a party for his employees that ran him at least a million.

To Jaime and me, that sounded like a cool dude – someone who took care of his people - and one we’d like to speak with. We told Hillary that we would welcome her help in getting our material in front of him. My wife went out one afternoon in the pouring rain to overnight copies of my novels, the prospectus, and everything else to her.

According to Hillary, this man was worth at least three quarters of a billion dollars. He had money to burn and had even looked into getting involved in the entertainment industry a few years before. He loved movies and TV.

More pluses in our minds.

Hillary told us it would probably be a few weeks before we heard. She wanted to make sure she caught this guy at just the right moment. She knew him very well; they’d been friends for a long time.

After three weeks, however, we still hadn’t heard anything. And my usual gut instinct told me that something was wrong. We emailed and called Hillary who put us off, saying that she needed more time. We gave it to her.

Another week or so passed. Hillary she came back and told us that she hadn’t heard anything yet, and that she didn’t want to pester this guy too much. We understood that to a point, but when days stretched into weeks and we still didn’t have an answer, both Jaime and I started getting concerned.

We called Hillary back and spoke with her. The outcome of the conversation didn’t sit well with Jaime and I. Both of us started to suspect that Hillary wasn’t being entirely honest.

So Jaime called the guy’s office and here’s how the conversation unfolded once Jaime explained who he was.

Personal assistant: “Yes, we received the material. It was very interesting.”

Jaime: “So would he be interested in coming on-board as an investor?”

Personal assistant: “No, I’m afraid not. He actually decided not to invest about a month or so ago. We told Hillary that he’d decided not to invest. Didn’t she tell you?”

No. She hadn’t.

We immediately contacted Hillary and asked her why she hadn’t told us. Instead of admitting her mistake and the fact that she had obviously lied to us, Hillary went off on a verbal rampage, accusing us of being unprofessional and that she’d never been treated so horribly before in all her life.

Um…yeah.

We told her to send the books back and while Hillary updated her Facebook status with snide oblique references to us, we scratched her name off the list of helpful people who actually have supported THE FIXER along the way to reality.

The thing is this: we’re always glad for help. But Hillary had made herself seem like she could deliver our entire financing goal easily – even going so far as to tell Jaime that she was 90% certain she could get the money. Well, if you tell that to two guys who are eager to set the world alight with a new kick-butt TV series, they’re obviously going to ask you to step up to the plate and deliver.

If Hillary had simply gotten back to us and said, “he said no,” that would have been fine. Case closed on that prospect; on to others. And we had plenty of people yet to speak with.

Instead, Hillary chose to lie when she told us she hadn’t heard anything. She tried to ingratiate herself into the actual production of THE FIXER and secure her own standing there before telling us it was a no. And by doing so, all she actually guaranteed was that we would never trust her or employ her in any fashion.

As we’ve found, people will say almost anything. But getting them to step up and deliver is something else. We don’t have time for liars.

February 17, 2009

by Jon F. Merz, novelist (author of the Lawson Vampire novels), screenwriter, and now TV producer for the new TV showThe Fixer

Bob, Rose’s Chief Executive, had initially told us that we’d have an answer by the end of the week. Rose was going to take my novels and head home, give them a read, and then let us know if she wanted to get involved. We said great. We could wait a few days no problem.

Friday came and went without a call.

Any sales professional will tell you that the longer it takes to get an answer out of a prospect, the more likely it is that it will be a no. The sale goes cold. So, when the weekend passed, Jaime and I made sure to call on Monday. Rose, however, wasn’t around since she’d flown down to her six million dollar home in Florida. Her assistant would give her the message that we’d called.

We kept waiting.

Days turned into weeks. And our initial optimism about the meeting quickly started to dwindle. Rose was nowhere to be found. She was busy. Messages were passed on to her (presumably) and we kept up the calls.

In the meantime, we’d started a group for the project out on Facebook. We had a few hundred members and I took pains to search for Rose’s sons on Facebook and friend them. They accepted my request and I then promptly invited them to join THE FIXER group. They both did. This helped restore some measure of hope in me, but the continued failure of Rose to contact us nibbled away at any of the confidence I felt.

Jaime and I replayed the meeting over and over again, trying to dissect and see where we might have made mistakes. We Monday-morning quarterbacked that thing so often and we both came away with one conclusion: we could not have prepared any more or done things any better than we did. If we lost this prospect, it simply wasn’t meant to be.

That slammed home a hard truth: while it’s absolutely vital to be as totally prepared as possible for any meeting like this, preparation does not win the game. It only makes defeat a little less likely. There are still plenty of variables that can derail what looks to be a promising partnership. And most of those variables are things you can’t prepare for. That makes it all the tougher to take when things go badly.

Finally, after the better part of a month, my cell phone rang. The number that popped up on to the screen matched the number on Bob’s card. (I’d positioned Bob’s card right atop my keyboard from the day I’d returned from the meeting knowing that he would eventually call us.)

His assistant said hello when I answered and asked me to hold while she patched Bob through. I took a few deep breaths and steeled myself for the conversation, my heart thundering in my chest. Memories of the dangerous situations I’d been lucky enough to survive during my life flashed through my head as adrenaline raced through my system. It seemed to me that I had stepped out on to another kind of battlefield, one where hope is the casualty of war.

Bob came on the line. We exchanged the obligatory pleasantries. I noticed he made no apology for the enormous length of time it had taken them to reach whatever conclusion he was about to deliver.

“So, you know, we don’t know very much about the entertainment industry.”

I frowned. We’d covered this already in the meeting. “It’s new ground for you,” I said. “I understand.”

“Yes, so I know Rose was really interested in pursuing this, but her advisors think it’s a bit too risky at the moment. I really don’t think this is going to be the right move for us right now. Especially since we’d be the lead investors on the project.”

This was true. We didn’t have any other investors at that time. If Rose decided to come onboard, she would be our first and most prominent investor.

Bob continued. “So, what I’d suggest is you guys keep doing what you’re doing. We had a great meeting – very impressed with the both of you – and if you can find some other investors, we want you to come back and talk to us.”

My heart sank. This wasn’t what I’d hoped to hear. “So, you’re saying Rose wants to boogie. She just doesn’t want to be the first person out on the dance floor.”

Bob laughed. “That’s about it, exactly.”

I thanked him for his time and said we’d be in touch. I hung up. Devastated. We’d had a great meeting. Rose clearly wanted to get involved, but her money people had convinced her it was too risky.

I called Jaime and told him the news. We were both floored. Pissed off. Why, we wanted to know, would anyone worth about a billion dollars take financial advice from people who weren’t even millionaires? Rose had seemed like a strong woman who was capable of making her own decisions. But apparently not.

We allowed ourselves an hour to mourn the fact that we hadn’t succeeded.

Yet.

Then it was back to searching.

As one last gasp at trying anything, I reached out to both of Rose’s sons and asked if they would be interested in coming on-board for a smaller investment. Jaime and I figured that a couple of young playboy types might really enjoy doing something like this. But neither son showed any interest, citing the exact same reasons that Bob had told me on the phone. Too risky.

Until we had another investor, Rose was a dead-end.

We took the hit in stride. Both Jaime and I have dealt with a lot of tough things in our lives. We still had a killer project that we knew was going to be an immense success. All we had to do was find someone with the courage and foresight to recognize its greatness.

January 29, 2009

by Jon F. Merz, novelist (author of the Lawson Vampire novels), screenwriter, and now TV producer for the new TV showThe Fixer

(Please note: all names have been changed in the interests of protecting the privacy of the people we've met with on this journey.)

The morning last February dawned bright and cold. Jaime and I suited up and prepared to enter a meeting with a woman who could easily hand us a check for $20 million and never bat an eyelash. Our hopes, to say the least, were huge.

Rose was a widow and her husband had started one of the largest private companies n the US, employing tens of thousands of people. Their business was in recycling metal and a variety of related businesses. When Rose's husband died, control of the company passed to her. We’d never heard of them until Jaime had pulled up Rose’s information and succeeded in getting us in for a meeting.

We brought several copies of the prospectus with us to go over. In addition, our graphic design genius Ari had put together a few great posters that she’d mocked up despite being horribly sick. Since we didn’t yet have our leading man, the person in the poster was deliberately in shadow. However, we felt that having a visual aid would help this woman visualize what THE FIXER would eventually look like.

Jaime and I drove into the financial district of Boston for the meeting and arrived five minutes early. Upstairs in the non-descript, but elegant office, we were shown into a conference room. We immediately noticed that there were six chairs set out. We had anticipated pitching only to the woman in question. It turned out we had a larger audience.

The first person who breezed into the room was Bob and he introduced himself with a hearty handshake and smile. “I hope you don’t mind me sitting in on this. Rose asked me to look over your materials and I’ve got a few questions.”

Far be it for us to say no, right? Rose then entered the meeting and was gracious and warm in her greeting. Her first words to us were, “Well, you’re not what I expected.”

Apparently, when she heard that a couple of guys from Boston wanted to make a vampire show, the first image that popped into her head was that we would be dressed in Gothic fashion with tattoos and piercings. Instead, she got two suited business professionals. Score one for us.

Behind Rose came her two twenty-something sons, who, according to Bob, “Don’t get a chance to do something like this everyday, so we invited them to sit in on this, too.” The guys were both nice enough and only looked vaguely disinterested.

We all took our seats and Bob brought out a copy of our prospectus that Rose had provided him. All over this document was bright red ink and scrawled questions. Bob smiled. “I’ve been looking over your presentation and I’ve got just a few questions for you…”

For the next sixty minutes, Bob fired salvo after salvo at me. Jaime sat quietly by and it seemed that Bob was focused solely on me. Perhaps because they were my novels we were talking about turning into a TV series. But for sixty minutes there was no let up in his assault. This was a man who knew exactly what questions to ask of any business in order to make a judgment call about investing. It was impressive, to say the least.

Bob had questions on every conceivable aspect of our proposal. He went through the sales figures, budgets, casting, crew, book sales, and pretty much every possible thing he could. I answered his questions evenly and without pause. And for the most part, he seemed satisfied with the responses. Yes, obviously this was new territory. No, no one has tried this before. Yes, there is risk. But there’s also great reward.

And so it went. At the end o sixty minutes, Bob paused and said (thankfully), “Well, that’s all I’ve got.” He then looked around the table, first at Rose and then her sons. After Bob’s barrage, the other questions were a joy to field.

Bob’s role in Rose’s company was of Chief Executive, so it’s no wonder that he really took us through the wringer. We’d never expected an easy sale and $20 million is one hell of a lot of money. But Bob was also fair and I respected him immensely for his candor. Where he didn’t know about the industry, he readily admitted so. And our presentation became as much a tutorial on the entertainment industry as it did our addressing his concerns.

The biggest hurdle, it appeared, was the fact that they, like other wealthy Bostonians, simply didn’t make any money in the entertainment field. Convincing them that they could was our biggest challenge.

Finally, Rose stood and said, “Well, I’m really looking to do something different. And this certainly is different.” We took that as a great sign. I’d brought copies of my novels and handed them around from my dwindling supply. Rose took copies of each and told us she was going to read them and let us know what she thought.

We all shook hands and thanked them for having us come in and that was that. Outside, Jaime and I walked back to the car and sat there catching our breath. I had a pounding headache and felt like I’d just run a marathon. I’d been in pitch meetings before with film and TV types, but those were an absolute dream compared to what we’d just endured. Bob had never been rude or insulting, he’d just been persistent with his line of questioning.

Now we had to do the most uncomfortable thing of all: wait.

(Note: Enjoying reading about our experiences turning THE FIXER into reality? Want to get involved? We still have room for a few investors if you’re interested or know someone who might be. Drop us a line at jonfmerz@verizon.net)

January 22, 2009

(When last we left, Jon & Jaime, partners at New Ronin Productions, had just decided to produce their own television series THE FIXER based on Jon's Lawson Vampire novels. But they needed money to do that - a lot of money...)

Based on our budget for producing thirteen one-hour episodes, plus an additional 14th episode that would be released only on the DVD set, and the purchase of a small facility for a sound stage, green screen, and post-production, we estimated that we would need $20 million to fund THE FIXER. That’s a lot of money, but far less than what networks routinely spend.

Jon F. Merz

Once you start delving into Hollywood, you find out that networks usually spend up to $4 million on a pilot episode alone. Additional episodes range anywhere from high six-figures to $2-$3 million. Then there are the amortization costs that networks and production companies add on that further drive up the cost.

But we were most definitely not Hollywood.

And we had assembled a team of people who knew how to get things done without a bloated bottom line. Further, the people who had come on-board the team were more interested in being a part of something big rather than simply cashing a paycheck.

Keeping that budget in mind, we set about doing sales forecasts of what we could reasonably expect to make on broadcast rights sales domestically, internationally, and through DVD sales, and digital downloads.

We knew that a $20 million investment would require a $30 million payback ($20 million + 50% ROI for our investors) plus whatever we hoped to make as profit. And our hopes were that we would make enough beyond what we owed to set up a second season of THE FIXER and possibly start some other projects as well.

Our worst-case sales projections came in at $35 million (cumulative from all sales channels) and our best sales projections were well over $100 million.

Emboldened by these numbers, we didn’t necessarily feel that seeking $20 million was too far-fetched. It would still require a deft touch to even get in the front door with potential investors, however.

My partner Jaime has just that touch. He’s a gifted speaker and is empathic and driven about what he believes in. And whereas I loathe the prospect of cold calling anyone, Jaime has no qualms about picking up the phone and talking to absolutely anyone about what we are doing.

Jaime did some research on New England’s wealthiest people and started calling them up. Just like that. Inevitably, he would get a personal assistant on the line or someone in charge of filtering out potential nut jobs. But Jaime very seldom ran into anyone who wasn’t interested in hearing about THE FIXER.

We soon had a prospect. While I won’t disclose any names of the people we dealt with out of respect for their privacy, all of our initial pitches were to billionaires in our area.

Billionaire #1’s personal assistant just happened to be a vampire fan. That’s always a good thing. And when she heard about THE FIXER, she couldn’t wait to tell her boss about us. And she did just that. We sent over our confidential prospectus and waited. After several weeks, Jaime spoke to her. She told Jaime that her boss was interested, but wanted to run it past his son, who apparently worked out in Hollywood at his own production company.

We said fine and waited some more. Jaime called again and was told that the son thought the idea was spectacular. Great, we thought, this is it. A home run the first time out. When do we sign?

But this particular billionaire thought that rather than get involved himself, that THE FIXER would be a perfect vehicle for his son’s production company – would we be open to that?

Of course we would!

And that, of course, is where everything fell apart. Because, unbeknownst to us, we had wandered into the middle of a father/son feud. After doing some research on the son’s production company and discovering that neither of his two projects to date had made any money, we wondered about the nature of the company. Jaime called to speak with the assistant again and was told that as soon as her boss suggested to his son that he work with us, all hell broke loose. The son didn’t like his father telling him what he should do and who he should work with and stormed out of the house to fly back to Los Angeles in a big huff.

Oooookay, we said, how about if we just work with the dad then? You know, the billionaire himself?

But now the father didn’t want to have anything to do with it since it reminded him of the rift with his son. And our first golden opportunity evaporated in front of our eyes all because of a stupid little spat.

Jaime hadn’t been idle during our long wait and had lined up several other potentials. He would call them up and make the pitch and then I would fire off all the emails with our prospectus. We were developing a great teamwork approach to finding suitable investors and pitching them, but our reception was anything but warm.

Most of them had no idea how Hollywood worked. New England’s rich make their money in technology, real estate, healthcare and one or two other isolated industries far removed from the glitz of Los Angeles.

But we wanted someone local backing the project. This was a New England production, we said, and it should really have someone behind it from the area.

So, as we pitched, we had to educate. We explained and became conversant on the myriad ways Hollywood makes its money (actually, wink-wink, Hollywood doesn’t make any money at all. Nope, not a dime. Never. Everything they launch goes into the red and no one ever gets paid. Seriously. Here, have a bridge, too.)

And then we found someone else who wanted to meet with us. She was local. She was wealthy. And she wanted to “do something different.”

Well, we were different. And we finally had a chance to pitch her in person.

January 08, 2009

(Today's guest blogger is Jon F. Merz, novelist (author of the Lawson Vampire novels), screenwriter, and now TV producer for the new TV showThe Fixer )

If I were pitching my current project as a movie in Hollywood, here’s what the logline would sound like: “Two guys with no real experience in the television business decide to ask private investors to front them millions so they can produce 13 episodes of a new supernatural TV series that they will then sell broadcast rights to domestically and internationally, thereby hopefully making hundreds of millions of dollars and turning the entire Hollywood business model on its head.”

Sounds absolutely ludicrous, right?

But that is, in fact, what my business partner Jaime and I are doing. Let me back up for a moment and give you a few more details.

I’m a writer. I’ve had over a dozen novels published, co-authored two non-fiction books, had scores of short stories appear in print alongside some heavy hitters like Stephen King, and have written ad copy for everyone from Polaroid to Red Lobster Restaurants. I’ve scripted comics, screenplays, and turned four 3-minute webisodes into a novel. I don’t just write in one medium, preferring instead to try my hand at anything that helps me bump my game up to the next level.

Over the years, I’ve flirted a lot with Hollywood. There’s been some serious sexual tension, culminating a few times with deals that looked reasonably good on paper. But I’ve never jumped into the sack and here’s why: Hollywood doesn’t pay writers enough.

If you’re interested in how Hollywood makes its money, there is no finer book to read than THE BIG PICTURE: Money & Power in Hollywood by Edward James Epstein. I read that book several years ago and it opened my eyes.

Novelists especially tend to have a very fairytale image of Hollywood. They imagine that if they write a book, that Hollywood will come calling with an option (this is a small price – almost a rental fee, really – giving the producer or exec the ability to shop the project around and possibly secure financing, cast, crew, etc. within a certain time frame (usually 6-18 months)) or an outright rights purchase. If the movie then gets made, the studio will cut the writer a handsome check and the novelist gets the thrill of seeing their book turned into a movie.

When I started cutting my teeth in publishing, I imagined it would be this same amazing love story. What I didn’t count on was the interminable wait, the endless teases, and the fact that Hollywood doesn’t want novelists writing anything or sticking their noses anywhere into the process.

Some writers can live with that. They take the money and run, knowing that the end result may well be such an extreme departure from their original novel that it bears resemblance in name only – if they’re lucky.

But when studios wanted my work, I knew what they could reasonably expect to make off of my creations. And I wanted more than they were offering. Of course they balked and all the whispered promises evaporated.

Last year, exhausted at the number of television shows that were coming out that were, to be overly kind, crap, my friend Jaime and I sat down and discussed the idea of trying to do something ourselves.

When we hashed out the concept of using my un-vampire vampire series of novels as our first project, the first person I bounced the idea off of was a good friend of mine who works in the film/TV industry. He’s well-known, so I won’t mention his name here, but he pretty much knows everyone worth knowing in Los Angeles and New York City. I called him and told him what we were planning. Then I asked him if we were crazy.

What he told me was this: “If you can make this work, then the sky is the limit. You will open doors that have never been open to you before and you will change the way Hollywood works in TV.” Then he offered to come on and be part of our executive board.

That was good enough for us. We started New Ronin Productions and chose THE FIXER as our first project. Ronin, in feudal Japan, were masterless samurai – called “wave men” because they owed allegiance to no lord. The name felt appropriate and our mission seemed sound, albeit tough as hell.

We would find private investors willing to back us in the production of thirteen episodes for the first season. (Networks usually greenlight, or approve, a pilot and then order up to twelve additional episodes for a first season run). We would put a team together to shoot, edit, and package the series, as well as sell it domestically and internationally. I would write all the episodes, thereby guaranteeing that the sanctity of my novels stayed intact and that I had complete control over the story lines and characters. The novels take place in New England; the cast and crew would be from New England; and we hoped that our investors would also be from the region. THE FIXER would be born and raised in our backyard. We thought that was pretty cool.

We enlisted two experienced directors who had worked in both television and independent films for years (therefore they knew how to work on a tight budget). Our sales force was composed of industry vets who had shepherded major films to hundreds of millions of dollars worth of sales. Experienced vets and up-and-comers made up our crew. And our art & marketing department worked hard to develop a consistent look for our flagship project. You can see the results thus far at our official website.

But we needed money to pull this off. There was no business precedent whose plan we could use to attract investors, so we put it together after weeks of research into Hollywood budgets, sales forecasts, and more. Trying to divulge what Hollywood spends and what it makes is harder than cracking into the National Security Agency, but at long last, we felt we had a workable business prospectus.

Our offer was generous; we knew it had to be. We offered a 50% return on investment within 24 months to those who chose to back us. The task now was to try to convince wealthy Bostonians and New Englanders that a TV series entirely produced in their backyard was a viable and worthwhile investment.

But first, we had to find them. And then we had to get in the front door…